How to extend C# built-in types, like String?

Question

Greetings everyone... I need to Trim a String. But I want to remove all the repeated blank spaces within the String itself, not only at the end or

Answer 1

There's a yes and a no to your question.

Yes, you can extend existing types by using extension methods. Extension methods, naturally, can only access the public interface of the type.

public static string ConvertWhitespacesToSingleSpaces(this string value) {...}

// some time later...
"hello world".ConvertWhitespacesToSingleSpaces()

No, you cannot call this method Trim(). Extension methods do not participate in overloading. I think a compiler should even give you a error message detailing this.

Extension methods are only visible if the namespace containing the type that defines the method is using'ed.